


You Won't Even See My Lips Move

by Decepticonsensual



Category: The Transformers (IDW Generation One), Transformers - All Media Types
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-11-03
Updated: 2014-11-03
Packaged: 2018-02-23 22:21:31
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,725
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2557814
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Decepticonsensual/pseuds/Decepticonsensual
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>An alternate version of how Prowl might have gone from being the innocent young officer in "Shadowplay" to the master manipulator we all know and love today.  Prowl gets an up-front and personal demonstration of the workings of the Institute, courtesy of Trepan.  Warnings for nonconsensual mental violation/alteration and some blood (energon).  Based on a prompt from Onigil.</p>
            </blockquote>





	You Won't Even See My Lips Move

**Author's Note:**

  * For [OniGil](https://archiveofourown.org/users/OniGil/gifts).



There is a moment of darkness, and an  _absence_ like an ache – later, I will realise that it must have been the needles sliding free of my processor.  And then I open my optics for the very first time.

The one called Trepan is standing over me, his needles glistening purple.  A fat drop of energon, my energon, runs down between his fingers and soaks into the plating.  I track it.  I track the motions of dials and displays on the control panels at the far end of the room, discerning which are static, which move cyclically, which linearly, and I incorporate that into my calculations.  The plating at the corner of Trepan’s mouth twitches minutely.  Such a motion indicates uncertainty.  I track it, too.

“Prowl.”

My optics meet his.

“Do you know where you are?”

“Procedures room at the Institute.”

“And who am I?”

“Chief Mnemosurgeon Trepan.”

“Do you remember what you did before you came here today?”

Before?

_\- Syntax error -_

My mind is an enclosed room.  I can perceive all of it at once.  Gears and equations moving with soundless efficiency inside white walls, free of any stain.  Time tracks forward from the moment of my creation, here, now.  There is nothing else.

His lips press together.  This signifies impatience.  “Come on, Prowl.  I didn’t detach your memories.  You knew who I was, where we were.  How did you know that?”

How did I –

And it comes upon me.  It is hot, cacophonous, this flood of memory.  Not I.  The Other.  The one who bore this body, this identity, before I came into existence.  To review its memories from the inside is… disorienting.  Its mind was so chaotic.

I can hear it whimpering.  I can  _hear_ it.

*

_“There must be some misunderstanding.  Contact Flatfoot; he’ll vouch for me.  There are commendations on my record.  I’ve always done my duty.  There’s nothing that the Senate would –“_

_“Oh, we already know all that, little detective.”  A single needle gliding down a cheek – dexterous, not even scratching the plating.  “Such a loyal bot.  But, don’t you see?  You’re no longer fit to do your duty, not like this.  We only want to help you become stronger.  To serve Cybertron as you were destined to.”_

_“I don’t understand!”  Still writhing, still protesting, even as the restraints go around wrist, ankle, waist, throat._

_“You’re flawed, Officer.  Such a lovely mind, marred by such petty, distracting feelings and attachments.  Sentinel wants a perfect security officer.  A mech with all of your strategic abilities, but one who isn’t prey to irrationalities.”_

_It registers, then – what Trepan intends to take.  “No, you – you can’t!”_

_“If you had any idea of all we’ve already accomplished, you would realise how silly ‘can’t’ sounds.”  Trepan is stroking the white helm now, bending low enough to be optic-to-optic.  “Prowl – may I call you Prowl?  This isn’t one of our more experimental treatments.  This is routine.  Don’t fret so.  You’re in very, very good hands.”  Another caress, almost tickling, with just the tips of the needles.  Blue optics widen at the sight of them._

_“Please!  Please don’t – please!”_

_“Once this is over,” Trepan murmurs soothingly, “you’re going to feel so much better.  Well, perhaps ‘feel’ is the wrong word.”  A flash of a grin at his own joke.  “But, my little detective, you’re going to_ be  _so much better.”_

*

I raise my head.  “Today I left my apartment and proceeded to headquarters to begin my shift.  0.2 kilometers from headquarters, I was overpowered and my visual sensors disabled.  I was then taken here.”

“And what happened then?”

*

_“Please, I will do anything.  I will be whatever Sentinel wants me to be, just don’t – don’t touch my mind.  Please.  Trepan –”_

_“Shhhh.”  A few final adjustments, and then the faintest prickle of needles settling onto an exposed processor.  Electricity snaps painfully over the sensitive circuitry, but more than that, it feels_ wrong  _to be touched like this.  The entire frame wants to cringe away, but there’s nowhere to go.  “You’re trembling, Officer.  Try to relax.  You’ll thank me when I’m finished with you.  Now, are you ready for me?”_

_And the needles thrust home, and there is a scream._

*

There is a scream, here, now.

The door of the procedures room shudders open, familiar fingers curling around from the outside to force it along faster.  And then a mech is inside the room, looking at me and letting out a long wail.  I track the sound.  It signifies… agony.

I know this mech.

He whirls on Trepan.  “How could you?   _How could you?_ What the frag have you done to him?”

“Easy, Tumbler.”  Trepan has his clean hand out, fingers spread in a placating gesture; the hand with the dirty needles is behind his back.  “I’m sorry, I know you weren’t told, but you know as well as I do that we have to respect the wishes of the patient –”

“Patient?”  The one called Tumbler snorts.  “ _Patient?!_ You’ve been experimenting on my – the mech who used to be my  _partner_ , and you –“

“Tumbler, what do you take me for?”  Trepan’s optics are wide.  This signifies innocence, though most investigators consider it one of the signs most easily counterfeited.  “You think I would experiment on an officer of the law against his will?  Officer Prowl  _asked_ for this.”

“What?”  He crosses to me then, grabbing my arms roughly, and peers into my face.  “Prowl.  Prowl, talk to me!  Did you ask for this?”

My calculations process and align.  Tumbler became Trepan’s protégé because he shows tremendous promise in mnemosurgery.  Once he is fully trained, he will be a valuable asset to Cybertron.  The Other was of great importance to Tumbler, once.  It is imperative, therefore, that he not come to believe that his mentor violated the mind of the Other.

I tell him, “I asked for this.”

He shoots Trepan a disbelieving look, and leans close to me, so that his cheek is against mine.  His ventilations brush my plating as he whispers in my audial, “Tell me the truth.  You don’t even have to say it out loud.  If you just nod right now, I’ll know that this wasn’t anything you agreed to, okay?  Trepan can’t see you with me in the way.  Don’t be scared, Prowl.  If they did this to you without your consent, we’ll find a way to fix it.  I  _swear._ ”

_Don’t be scared,_ he says.

I pull away, looking up very deliberately into his optics.  “I wanted this.”

He is staring at me, his optics wide and lost.

I smile at him.  The motion takes a moment to remember, in the absence of emotion to provoke it.  A tightening of the plating here, and a sudden loosening there; one corner of the mouth up and then the other.  “Thank you for your concern, Tumbler.  But Trepan helped me.  He made me better.”

*

_The screams have subsided into bestial whines, and there are leaks from the mouth and the optics._

_Trepan grunts as he hits a burning, twisted knot of memory.  “What have we here?  Why are you still resisting – ah.”  Needles twitch, teasing the threads apart.  “Oh, Prowl.  Don’t you see?  It’s this, right here – this is exactly the kind of debilitating emotion I’m going to free you from.  Why would you want to hold onto this?  Doesn’t it_ hurt _?”_

_A soft groan, as Trepan’s fingers pluck out memories and parade them in front of the struggling processor:  Tumbler tossing his head and looking slyly back over his shoulder – “You only ever want to watch heist movies!”  “That’s because you_ never  _want to watch heist movies!” – clever fingers rubbing delicate chevron-tips – the warmth of an energon cube pressed into an exhausted hand after two days on stakeout – “Leave him out of this” – Tumbler angrily stacking his things in boxes to move out of their shared quarters – the terse exchange of names over the body of a murder victim the day they met – “I assumed you would come with me.”  And overlaying it all, pain, jagged and sharp…_

_… and then the jagged edges begin to smooth, to recede, the too-hot memory sanded down as slippery and cold as a stone._

_The stone starts to plummet, dropping down through the newly carved-out hollow where feeling used to be –_

_– “please –“_

_– and vanishes without a sound._

_And then_ and then  _I close_ open  _my optics_ for the very  _last_ first time.

*

Tumbler has his head in his hands.

“So, you see, his mind is quite intact,” Trepan is explaining.  “He is, in that respect, still the mech you knew.  It’s only his emotions that he asked us to excise for him.”

“ _Only._ ”  Tumbler lets out a bitter laugh.  “Well.  You got what you always wanted, didn’t you, Prowl?  No pesky feelings.  Nothing to distract you from your  _duty –_ not that I – that  _they_ ever did.”

I rise, and walk over to him, stretching out one hand to trace the crenellations at the edges of those delicate audial fins.  The corners of my optics tighten, and my lips press together, trembling slightly.  It is coming back to me now, how to fake these expressions.  “But they did, Tumbler,” I murmur.  “If you only knew.  My feelings for you came so close to undoing me.”

“Then why not just get rid of your memories of me?”  His whisper is hoarse, and he will not look at me.  “If this is because of me –”

“It’s not.  Not entirely.”  My hand strays from his fins to cup his face.  “I can’t risk ever finding another you.  You understand that, don’t you?”

He stays still for a long moment, shaking, and then jerks away from my touch.

He’ll do what we require of him, I think, watching him walk away.  And once he does – once Tumbler has learned everything that Trepan can teach him – then Trepan may meet with a convenient accident.  It shouldn’t be too difficult to ensure that one of the Institute’s more dangerous subjects gets loose, or is broken out by even more dangerous friends.  Sentinel will require more planning on my part, but provided I can find a way to manipulate events so that the Decepticons are pulling the trigger, our Prime won’t last too long, either.

Because, while I acknowledge and am gratified by the improvements they have made to me:

_No one touches my mind._


End file.
